Callum’s musings on the world at large…
I’m back in Bangkok. Several people have said “You just can’t get enough of that place” or “You need your Bangkok fix every now and then hey”.
Bangkok is my home away from home. My base in Asia. I have friends here. Places I can stay. I know the city reasonably well. I can order food, get around, get online, etc. If I transit through Asia, I typically stop in Bangkok.
To keep the pics flowing, here’s the view from the 17th floor where I’m staying.
Ross and I set off in the eco camper van…
We left Sydney heading north. Our first night we pulled off the road onto a track through a forest and camped for the night.
Second day we made it to Nambucca Heads and awoke to this view.
As my two travelling companions are both non-drivers, it was agreed that I would drive and they would cook. So, inspired by this view, Ross whipped up a storm on the stove on our second morning.
We offered Fio a cup of tea, and in return she gave us the low down on the local area, and took this snap of us enjoying our first cooked meal on the trip.
On Tuesday (third day) we made it to Pottsville to visit Sharyn and Dennis. Sharyn is a long-standing friend of my mum’s. It was great to finally meet her after having met her kids and heard so much about her. When we arrived there was a freshly baked chicken pie in the kitchen of which we made short work! 
Here’s Sharyn on the phone in her kitchen.
After staying overnight at Sharyn’s (thanks again Sharyn) we drove to Brisbane to pick up our third hombre. On the way we met some tree girls. Good times.
Then we collected Ahmed from the airport.
After picking up Ahmed we were heading north to meet Fergus and Trijntje in Maleny. We got pretty close and pulled off the road to find somewhere to camp for the night. Eventually we pulled off the road and stopped. We were awoken to the sound of something banging against the van…
Once our bedmates were chased away, we realised we’d chosen a splendid spot to camp.
After a very late night and an equally late start, we made it to Maleny to stay with Fergus and Trijntje for a night. They live in a truly amazing house built from rammed earth. Here’s a shot from the gardens showing just how lush and tropical this part of the world is.
After two fantastic days with Fergus and Trijntje, we set off for a night out in Brisbane. We ran into one of our tree climbing friends again, and they invited us to stay at their place. In the morning we bore witness to the Australian man and his barbecue in action! Quite a feast it was. Thanks again Chris and Jasmine.
Then we cruised a little further down to the travellers mecca of Byron Bay. We proceeded to get outrageously stoned on our first night. Here’s some small token of our adventures.
Naturally, severe munchies ensued, and the chocolate cake was rapidly devoured.
After a couple of days of Byron Bay, we cruised on southwards in the direction of home. On the way we spotted a couple of signs for Fredo’s Pies. 50 varities of pies. We just couldn’t resist. Ahmed devoured the crocodile meat pie. He was fairly impressed. We had to snap a shot with Marilyn.
An assortment of photos from Sydney follows.
It’s quite common to see surfers strolling through the streets of Sydney. In fairness, this was just across the road from the beach though!
The first picture was just across the road from this, Bondi Beach.
Ross, master of the ocean.
The white ladies. This was taken at the Primo Italiano Italian Festival.
While leaving Agata’s place I couldn’t help but laugh at this sign. Otis, the lift company, are located at 5-9 Ricketty Street. Oh dear, that was an unfortunate choice!
I spotted Tunnocks Caramel Wafers in a speciality sweet shop in Pitt St Mall. I just couldn’t resist.
I’m starting to get a tiny bit ill. It’s the same sort of sore throat / slight cough that I’ve had a few times recently. So in a bid to beat it down once and for all, I’m going to overdose on raw food for the next few days! I whipped up to the shops this morning and bought a couple of bagfulls of goodness. Here’s my first raw breakfast:
Back at Mzoli’s today. I went out early and ordered a bucket load of meat (literally). There were 20 or 30 of us in total. We did order more meat later though. This was just the first round!
Somewhat begrudgingly, I have finally joined flickr. I was delighted to discover that I got the url flickr.com/photos/chmac - my usual username. It’s somewhat confusing, I log into flickr with my yahoo account callum_macdonald then my flickr username is callummacdonald (no underscore) and my url is chmac. Oh well, the chmac part is the important bit!
Here’s my first flickr photo…
I was at the Cape Town Facebook Developers Garage last night. I have the badge to prove it!
It was an interesting evening. Pizza was generously provided by Butler’s Pizza. If I’m not mistaken their delivery staff arrive wearing a tuxedo shirt (whatever it’s called) and a bow tie! Fantastic. Drinks were supplied by Joyent (I think I got the link right).
There were a few interesting presentations. Jacques Marneweck spoke about memcache. He looked pretty nervous, but had some interesting things to say. He talked about starling, a memcache based queue server developed by Twitter and some other highly techy stuff. His slides were missing due to a format issue. I think the slides would really have helped the presentation, maybe he’ll post them online.
I’m meeting a few of the same people at most of the tech events in Cape Town. There seems to be a few interesting businesses going on down here. It feels like a small tech community, with a few “big fish”. Reminds me of Edinburgh.
Recent Comments